The digital revolution, once defined as the transition from analog to digital technologies, has reached a point where it is redefining the future of economies, industries and societies as we know them. We have moved beyond the digital era and have now reached the new era of cognitive business. The explosion of data requires computers and infrastructure that are not only able to synthesize and make sense of it all, but can also think about how best to overcome the most pressing challenges facing businesses and our world.
In this environment, IT leaders, once viewed solely as technicians, are now seen as the catalysts and strategists behind business success. They are being challenged to add value by opening their companies to new ways of doing business. They must be willing to discard old paradigms, embrace cognitive thinking and technologies, and become masters of innovation.
Technology used to be big, foundational, like the pipes and plumbing of business. However, with the explosion of unstructured data, the immediacy of real-time, the ubiquity of mobile, the globalization of everything, the constant need for security, it's clear that the cognitive workloads of the future will require a different infrastructure.
IBM interviewed several IT leaders at companies in different industries around the world. Some of the questions we asked were: What are the core issues that organizations have to wrestle with as their industries shift to digitally based enterprises? What changes in infrastructure technology and mindset are essential to lead an IT organization through these turbulent times? And how will all of this shape the future of IT infrastructures? The answers resulted in the recently published study New Technology, New Mindset - Strategic IT Infrastructure to Compete in the Digital Economy.
The main conclusion of the study is that to drive digital transformation, IT infrastructures must evolve in three ways:
1) Enabling the integration of ecosystems
Several of the IT leaders surveyed said the first step on this path is to build and integrate strong, open ecosystems. They understand that their future success depends not only on their own IT capabilities, but on the ability to connect with others in the market. Participation in a number of ecosystems is now seen as a way to offer unique and differentiated services to customers without requiring the full set of in-house capabilities. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are increasingly seen as the primary vehicle through which these connections are made between enterprises.
2) Optimize transaction processing and analytics
The ability to process transactions and gain insights from data to support rapid decision making within the organization is now at the heart of the IT infrastructure.
3) Develop a flexible capability to quickly address changing business conditions.
Developing an IT infrastructure that can confidently and quickly address the changing needs of internal and external customers was a key issue highlighted by many survey participants. An inability to change quickly to meet these unpredictable demands can result in lost revenue, negative brand awareness and loss of customers to competitors.
The study confirms our belief that making the right investments in transformational technologies and changing existing mindsets are critical to a successful digital business strategy. It confirms our focus, from IBM Systems, on integrating mobile services, data for analytics and operations services for service predictability.
At IBM Systems, we're here to help IT leaders become trusted service providers, charged with enabling new services and business models for their enterprises by mastering the hybrid cloud.
All of this lays the foundation for the new era of cognitive business. And cognitive workloads require a re-imagined infrastructure capable of synthesizing massive amounts of data drawn from an expansive technology ecosystem, including public, private and hybrid cloud, as well as distributed devices and the Internet of Things. This gives enterprises new competitive advantages.
By: Carlos Giaveno
Source: Systems Hardware Solutions - IBM Argentina, Paraguay & Uruguay
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